Guide · Jul 2026
Stop chasing payments: how to track who owes you
The buyer picks an item. You send your account. They say they'll transfer tonight. Tomorrow you follow up — nothing. If that sounds familiar, the problem isn't your customers. It's that nothing is keeping score.
Why “I'll transfer tonight” fails
Informal transfer and pay-on-delivery are normal in Nigerian social commerce — but with no record, an unpaid promise looks exactly like a paid order until you go digging. Multiply that across dozens of orders a week and real money slips through the cracks.
Keep a running balance per customer
The fix is simple in principle: every order records what was owed and what's been paid, so each customer has a running balance you can see at a glance. No more scrolling chats to answer “did this one pay?”
What good looks like
One screen per customer showing total owed, order by order — and a store dashboard showing your total outstanding debt and who your biggest debtors are.
Send reminders — without the awkward part
Chasing money by hand is uncomfortable and easy to forget. Automating it removes both problems: a friendly reminder goes out after a few days, repeats on a sensible cadence, and stops once they've paid or after a set number of tries — so no one feels harassed.
How RunBiz does it
RunBiz keeps the running balance for you and can text overdue customers automatically over SMS — you set the delay, the gap between reminders, and the maximum. Or tap “remind overdue now” whenever you like. It's part of the same free store you use to take WhatsApp orders.
Start tracking who owes you — free